WITHOUT STONES,THERE IS NO ARCH.

THE ARCH

MARCO

POlO dE

SCRIbES

A bRId

gE, STO

NE by ST

ONE.

“bUT W

HICH IS

THE STO

NE THAT

SUPPOR

TS THE

bR

IdgE?” K

UblAI K

HAN ASK

S.“TH

E bRIdgE

IS NOT S

UPPORT

Ed by ON

E STONE

OR

ANOTH

ER,” MA

RCO ANS

WERS, “

bUT by

THE lIN

E Of

THE AR

CH THAT

THEy fO

RM.”

KUblA

I KHAN R

EMAINS

SIlENT

, REflEC

TINg. TH

EN HE

AddS:

“WHy dO

yOU SPE

AK TO M

E Of THE

STONES

? IT

IS THE A

RCH THA

T MATT

ERS TO

ME.”

POlO A

NSWERS

:

“WITHO

UT STON

ES THER

E IS NO

ARCH.”

As mentioned previously, Polo described visiting f if ty-f ive cities to Kahn so that he could divert the emperor’s attention from the demise of his empire to tales of exploration and greatness. However, it is later revealed that Polo is talking about only one city, Venice. The above excerpt is taken from a dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, and metaphorically correlates with this development in the novel ’s storyline. The arched bridge serves as a metaphor for the city, while the stones that support the arch are the many dif ferent facets of cities discussed by Marco Polo through his description of his fantasy cities. The stones also represent the fragmented literary nature of Calvino’s writing style, in which many small parts (the tales of Polo’s cities) are that become united with the realization that they are all part of the same bridge (all cities). Even further enhancing this metaphor is the attention to the signif icance of the center stone holding the bridge together, the keystone. This quote is located almost exactly in the center of the book, so in ways, this quote serves as the keystone for the framework of the book. All material discussed in the chapters of Polo’s adventures will refer back to the idea that each story is a metaphor for a what a city is, but is not independent of any other story or city.

ERSIlIA

spiderwebs of intricate

relationships

seeking

a form.

Marco Polo describes Ersilia as a city saturated with relationships and networks among its

inhabitants. He continues to say that each house in Ersilia is

connected by a string, whose color determines the nature of relationship. The

fact that the strings are dif ferent colors indicate that this city acknowledges not all relationships

are equal, rather, they can be divided into a system of hierarchy. Calvino writes, “When the strings become so

numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their

supports remain.” (Calvino, 76) The residents attempt to set up Ersilia in further territories, but always end up abandoning their homes and

repeating the process. Calvino makes it apparent that residents and the webs of string are dependent on one another, as the refugees consider the abandoned network of relationships Ersilia, while the abandoned “spiderwebs of intricate relationships” seek residents to give them form again (Calvino, 76).

Marco Polo describes Ersilia as a city saturated with relationships and networks among its inhabitants. He continues to say that each house in Ersilia is connected by a string, whose color determines the nature of relationship. The fact that the strings are dif ferent colors indicate that this city acknowledges not all relationships are equal, rather, they can be divided into a system of hierarchy. Calvino writes, “When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their supports remain.” (Calvino, 76) The residents attempt to set up Ersilia in

further territories, but always end up

abandoning their homes and repeating the process.

Calvino makes it apparent that residents and the webs

of string are dependent on one another, as the refugees consider the

abandoned network of relationships Ersilia, while the abandoned “spiderwebs

of intricate relationships” seek residents to give them fom again (Calvino, 76).

The use of string as a metaphor for human networking is relevant because string’s primary

purpose is to bond two entities together. It is apparent Calvino intended Ersilia to be built out of string to trace

social relationships and comment on how interconnected urban dwellers are simply by living in the conf ines of a city.

Calvino also touches on how involuntary social networking can be at times, in which our contacts can become exhausted,

muddled, and tangled when not properly tended to. A web of string also represents a larger concept of interconnectedness, in which

simply being an agent in the urban setting denotes an involvement in the process of negotating environment. This interconnectedness branches

into the way we behave on an everyday basis, whether it is recycling our trash or saying hello to our neighbors, to preserve a favorable and

pleasant living condition. Similar to the residents of Ersilia, when we feel we’ve exhausted the relationships in our communities, we tend to

move to other neighborhoods, cities, and countries to to continue growing and building our social

rapport.

Baucis is a city suspended in the sky, supported by stilts that stretch from the earth into the clouds. To access the el-evated city, one must climb lad-ders thousands of feet tall. None of the inhabitants or architecture from Baucis intervene with the earth below, creating a clean barrier be-tween the sprawl of the city and the desolate earth it rests on. Cal-vino writes that there are three hypotheses about the residents of Baucis, which are that “that they hate the earth; that they respect it so much they avoid all contact, and that they love it as it was before they existed and with spyglasses and telescopes aimed downwards they never tire of examining it, leaf by leaf, stone by stone, ant by ant, contemplat-ing with fascina-tion their own absence.” The ladder as a meta-phor could repre-sent human’s ten-dency to distance themselves from nature, especially when submersed in an extremely urban environ-ment. The ladders in Baucis are ex-tremely tall, and would presum-ably take days to climb. This re-lates to real cit-ies, because it takes an extended period of time to assimulate one-self into an ur-ban environment before it is even noticeable how distant one feels towards the ‘great outdoors.’

Additionally, the

ladders are made

of wood, a natural

material, so it is

humorous to see

humans distanc-

ing themselves

from nature, with

nature.

A real-world ap-

plication of Cal-

vino’s f ictional

ladders is New

York skyscrapers.

Similar to Baucis,

these living spac-

es suspend its

residents in the

sky, far from life

on the street lev-

el. Rather than

climbing ladders,

we ride elevators

that usher us far

from the general

population and

propel us into our

private worlds.

There are even

similar hypoth-

eses about the in-

habitants of these

kind develop-

ments as there are

in Baucis, ques-

tioning whether

inhabitants chose

to be so far from

ground-level be-

cause they prefer

to exclude them-

selves from it, or

because their res-

idence in the sky

will af ford a more

beautiful, obser-

vative experience

of the world that

surrounds them.

THERE

ARE TH

REE Hy

POTHES

ES AbO

UT THE

Of

bAUCIS

:THAT T

HEy HA

TE THE

EARTH;

THAT T

HEy

RESPEC

T IT SO

MUCH

THEy A

vOId A

ll CONT

ACT;

THAT T

HEy lO

vE IT

AS IT

WAS bE

fORE T

HEy

ExISTEd

ANd W

ITH SPy

glASSE

S ANd

TElESC

OPES

AIMEd d

O

W

N

WAR

dS THE

y NEvE

R TIRE

Of ExAM

IN-INg

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f by lEA

f, STONE

by STO

NE, ANT

by ANT

, CON

TEMPlA

TINg WI

TH fAS

CINATIO

N THEIR

OWN

.

AbSENCE.

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MA

RC

o P

ol

o d

ESC

RIB

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FE

do

RA

AS

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gR

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Al

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ARE THE

fORMS

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y COUl

d HAvE

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NTIl yES

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URE

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ONly A

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glASS g

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If THE

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gES: TH

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RyTHIN

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UST

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SCOURS

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ly REC

ORdINg

THE N

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CH SHE

dEfINE

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SElf AN

d All HE

R PARTS

. HOWEv

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lly bE,

bENEAT

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THICK

COATINg

Of SIg

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WHATEv

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Ay CONT

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l,

yOU lEA

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UT HAvIN

g dISCO

vEREd I

T.

scapes. Take for example a neighborhood like Times Square, where virtually every inch is saturated with f lashing lEd sig-nage, massive marquees with ticket sale prices, and a countless street signs that assist navigating around for residents and visitors. The super-saturation of se-miotics in cities is very characteristic of modern urban space, and is one of Cal-vino’s strongest assertions in universally addressing the city. The chapter makes a point to state that “beneath this thick coating of signs, whatever it may contain or conceal, you leave Tamara without hav-ing discovered it.” (Calvino, 14)

jean Baudrillard, in his essay on Simula-cra and Simulation, claimed that “modern society has replaced all reality and mean-

ing with symbols and signs, and that the human experience is of a

simulation of real-ity rather

than reality itself.” We see this belief prove evident in the city of Tamara, as Calvino even goes so far to say that you can experience Tamara without even discovering it. In reality, it is quite possible to leave a space like Times Square without feeling like you have seen anything more than a heap of signif iers and imaginary signif ieds. The inhabitants of Tamara can be compared to the inhabitants in many modern-day cities, as we have grown dependent on semiotics to establish rank, direction, and most importantly, order. Some en-tire systems are based on the universal understanding of certain symbols, such as the traf f ic system, in which we as-sociate red with ‘Stop’ and green with ‘go.’ Many of Baudrillard’s arguments can be discussed in context of Tamara, and it would be interesting to see if the citizens of Tamara ever devise tactics to overcome the government’s control over symbols, signs, and ultimately behavior.

In Tamara, “you penetrate it along streets thick with signboards jutting from the walls,” (Calvino, 13) and images “of things that mean other things.” Some forms of signage direct wanderers to locations, like the tavern, gro-cery, or barracks. other signs, such as stat-ues and shields adorned with a coat of arms refer to societal status. There is signage that warns wanderers what is forbidden in cer-tain areas (i.e. urinating in public, f ishing on the bridge, entering an alley with a wagon), while other signage refers to what is allowed (watering zebras, cremation, games). More sculptural signif iers are the temples of gods, created to provide Tamara’s inhabitants with the proper environment to pray. Then there are invisible signs, in which a location’s name is represented merely by “its very form and the position it occupies in the city’s order” (Calvino, 13). Calvino also describes how manmade objects like kale bracelets and em-broidered headbands stand for elegance and voluptuousness. In this city, the gaze is not only the inhabitant’s tool for observing the plethora of information around them, but it is trained to respond with associations to the visual discourse that surrounds them. Calvino writes, “the city says everything you must think, makes you repeat her discourse, and while you believe you are visiting Tamara you are only recording the names with which she def ines herself and all her parts.” (Cal-vino, 13) These signs are metaphors for the bombardment of semiotics in our urban land-

In conclusion, it is evident that

Ita lo Calvino employed the metaphor device quite of ten in his novel. By

examining the manmade objects

Calvino used for metaphors, we can see that

a lthough the novel is more than thir ty years

old, the way cit ies are discussed is st i l l very

relevant. The most paramount metaphor,

the arched bridge, not only responds

to the idea that cit ies are dependent on

the balance of its many smaller par ts, but it acknowledges Calvino’s

l iterary layout. discussing cit ies l ike

Ersi l ia , Baucis , Fedora , and Tamara provide

metaphors that address facets of cit ies l ike

socia l networking, distancing onessel f f rom

nature, negotiat ing imaginary futures with

one’s environment, and exist ing in a world

chock ful l of symbols and signi f iers.

CONClUSION